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Six people have died, 87 have been infected, and some 1,800 schools and kindergartens have temporarily shut their doors amid an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in South Korea. It’s likely the most significant outbreak of the disease outside the Middle East, and over the weekend, the World Health Organization released details on new cases of the disease in South Korea. It also issued a surprising piece of advice for individuals seeking to avoid infection: Drink neither raw camel milk nor camel urine. That’s perhaps not as strange as it sounds. While the exact transmission mechanisms remain unclear, it...

WASHINGTON – Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s top religious authority in the ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam, has ruled it’s acceptable for men to marry girls so young the West would deem it nothing short of pedophilia and rape. Despite the Saudi justice ministry’s failed efforts to date to set 15 as a minimum age to marry a girl in the kingdom, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz declared there is nothing prohibiting Muslim men from marrying girls even younger. As Grand Mufti, Abdulaziz is president of the Supreme Council of Ulema (Islamic scholars) and chairman of...

<p>Muslim burial practices are being blamed for the spread of Ebola.</p> <p>Remains of Secretary General of The Nigeria Supreme General for Islamic Affairs and Seriki of Egbaland, Alhaji Lateeef Adegbite at his burial in 2012.</p> <p>Islam requires family members to personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. This practise is putting more Africans at risk to catch the disease that is spread by body fluids.</p>

A 12-year-old Christian girl died on Friday as a result of physical violence inflicted by her employer, a rich and powerful Muslim lawyer in Lahore. The case has led to protests by the Christian community, which demonstrated before the provincial assembly of Punjab in Lahore. The authorities are trying to appease people and have pledged that justice shall be done. Pakistani President Zardari has also promised to pay compensation to the family. A Protestant NGO, Sharing Life Ministry Life (SLMP), reported the case of Shazia Bashir, 12, who was employed for the past eight months as a domestic worker in...

Someone tell me again about how the Religion of Peace is tolerant of other religions. Christians who went to observe their Christmas at Nazareth, the birthplace of Jesus, were greeting with a giant banner announcing that Allah has no son right in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Just wait to see what will happen if the gain control of all of the west bank holy sites. Read the full story below:

Right-wing politicians have protested at the inclusion of Islamic symbols in nativity scenes in northern Italy. Elaborate cribs with figurines enacting the nativity decorate most Catholic churches in Italy at this time of year. A priest at a Genoa church put a mosque and minaret in his crib, while a crib at a Venice school also had a mosque. The Genoa branch of the anti-immigrant Northern League reacted with fury. But a senior church figure said there are no firm rules on what can be included. 'Gesture of inclusivity'

A number of Islamic associations have put a quick end to their collaboration with a professor -- and trainer of people who are supposed to teach Islam in German high schools -- who has expressed his doubt that Muhammad ever lived. Islam scholar Michael Marx spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about what lies behind the debate and the historical person of the Prophet.

A GIRL of 15 was tricked into a "telephone marriage" ceremony to a Sheffield man with a mental age of five in a ceremony recognised by sharia (Islamic law). When the girl arrived from Pakistan expecting to meet the handsome man she had been shown in a photograph, she found that he was 40 years old, unemployed and disabled. To make matters worse, her mother-in-law decided to exploit her attractive looks by forcing her into prostitution. The family invited men to the family home to rape her before she managed to escape to the police by bolting through the front...

Mohammed will likely become the most popular name for baby boys in Britain by the end of the year, The Times reported on Wednesday, citing government data. Though official records from the Office for National Statistics list the spelling Mohammed 23rd in its yearly analysis of the top 3,000 names given to children, when all the different spellings of the name are taken into account, it ranks second, only behind Jack, according to The Times. There are various different spellings of the name because when it is transliterated into English from Arabic, families spell it as closely to their own...

Note: The link above just refers to the book itself, not the article. ISBN is 0-89555-467-4 This quote is from the last chapter, and is intended to provoke discussion. The West has returned, and one might say that the work of Saladin was plainly undone. Now the future is as hidden from us as it was from those fathers of ourse who, barely three lifetimes ago, still feared the further advance of the East. But when we consider the major forces at work before our eyes, though we cannot conclude upon their results we can at least estimate their immediate...

Last week, Muslims marched in the centre of London chanting "Freedom go to Hell!" There could be no more graphic illustration of the paradox at the heart of the cartoon row. These protesters were exercising - and in many cases abusing - the freedom of protest and freedom of assembly that are foundation stones of British democracy. Yet, even as they exploited these hard-won liberties, they were calling for them to be abolished. This newspaper would not have published the cartoons of Mohammed at the centre of this controversy, images which we regard as vulgar and fatuously insulting. But -...

   #392 - Sheik Al-Qaradhawi: Wife Beating Yes, Homosexuality No. Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) - 11/28,2004 - 00:04:39    #391 - A Documentary and a Discussion about Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi LBC (Lebanon) - 11/28/2004 - 00:05:59    #390 - Fatah Leader Faruq Qaddumi: Two-States A Temporal Solution Al-'Alam TV (Iran) - 11/29/2004 - 00:02:25    #389 - Palestinian Historian 'Issam Sisalem: What Temple and What Shtemple?! The Jews Are Like Marine Worms Palestinian Authority TV - 11/21/2004 - 00:02:45  

PARIS -- The two teenage friends hardly seemed like Islamic radicals. They smoked marijuana, drank beer, listened to rap music, and wore jeans. But the pair of French Muslims died insurgents in Iraq -- one a suicide car bomber, according to relatives who traced the young men's path from the slums of Paris through a religious school in Syria to the fight against the US-led coalition next door. Like many young Muslims in France, Abdelhalim Badjoudj and Redouane el-Hakim did not have jobs, and relatives and friends say they grew more alienated in recent years, surrounded by secular Western culture...